Sunday, August 21, 2011

Rookie left-hander Luis Perez took a perfect game into the sixth inning and Jose Bautista homered, as the Blue Jays salvaged a series split with a 1-0 victory over the A’s on Sunday afternoon.

Perez, who was making his first career start, was dominant on the mound for Toronto. He retired the first 15 batters that he faced while utilizing a low-to-mid 90s fastball mixed in with an effective changeup and occasional slider.

Jerome Williams pitched seven stellar innings to get his first major league victory in almost six years, Peter Bourjos homered for the third straight game and Howie Kendrick also went deep, leading the Los Angeles Angels to a 7-1 victory over the bumbling Baltimore Orioles on Sunday and a sweep of the three-game series.
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Williams (1-0) posted his first victory in the majors since Sept. 25, 2005 with the Chicago Cubs, after losing his previous eight decisions. The 29-year-old Hawaiian-born ...

When play resumed after a 71-minute rain delay, the Nationals didn’t have to face Halladay, could turn to its steady bullpen and potentially pull out a win. The Nationals took advantage of the situation, after clawing back twice, to pull out a 5-4 walkoff win when a pitch hit Jonny Gomes in the bottom of the 10th inning before a crowd of 41,727.

With the bases loaded and only one out, Phillies reliever Brad Lidge hit Gomes on his left arm to score Ryan Zimmerman, the winning run.
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The ...

Some Maris supporters say that anybody who beat Ruth’s record and won two Most Valuable Player awards and the most pennants of any player in the 1960s (seven) deserves to be in the Hall. Writers at The New York Times are not allowed to vote for awards, but (and this always angers friends of mine from Maris’s home town of Fargo, N.D.) I do not think Maris had ...

Pablo Sandoval hit a tie-breaking two-run homer with two out in the 11th inning to lead the San Francisco Giants to a 6-4 victory over the Houston Astros Sunday.

The score had been tied at 4-4 since the fourth inning and the Giants missed several chances to take the lead until Sandoval’s 15th homer off Mark Melancon (6-4).
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The Giants left 12 base runners stranded, including seven over the final five innings. The loss snapped a four-game ...

Alex Rodriguez returned to the lineup and Curtis Granderson hit an inside-the-park home run to help the New York Yankees to a 3-0 victory over the Minnesota Twins on Sunday.

Rodriguez went 0 for 5 in his first game since July 7, but Mark Teixeira also homered and Ivan Nova (13-4) pitched seven shutout innings as the Yankees took three of four from the Twins.
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[Granderson’s] drive off of Jose Mijares hit high off the out-of-town scoreboard in right-center field and got away from both center ...

Center fielder Austin Jackson threw out Kosuke Fukudome at the plate to complete a game-ending double play and the Detroit Tigers held on to beat the Cleveland Indians 8-7 in a wild game Sunday.

Delmon Young and Victor Martinez homered in a seven-run third inning as the first-place Tigers completed a three-game sweep of the Indians. The Indians could have taken over first place with a sweep of their own, but leave Detroit trailing by 4 1-2 games in the AL Central race.
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Jose Valverde ...

The Brewers’ personality is like no other club’s. They are the anti-Cardinals, joyful instead of joyless, exuding energy. Their dugout erupted after they regained the lead in the ninth, and the players were still exchanging high-fives and hugs when they took the field for the bottom half, almost like a high-school team.
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“It may seem like it’s a free-for-all. I don’t want it be a free-for-all,” Roenicke said. “But with a lot of stuff, I just say, ‘All right.’ I try to pick ...

After the game in Tampa I asked Mussina why he’d gotten so angry. He patiently explained that when an umpire consistently misses pitches, especially when you’re older, you become convinced those extra pitches you have to throw will come back and get you sooner or later.

“A lot of guys think C.B. Bucknor should be a Double-A umpire,” I said.

Players and managers have bad years. So do front offices. The Twins’ front office is having a terrible year. Not only have there been a series of questionable personnel moves, but Smith also probably has botched any chance of re-signing potential free agents Michael Cuddyer and Jason Kubel.

He has handled their situations abysmally. Remember that glut of outfielders everyone was talking about? Well, it looks like the Twins will be down to Ben Revere ...

He went on to praise the team’s owner, Arte Moreno - “definitely the best owner in baseball who runs what was voted in an ESPN poll as baseball’s top organization” - and went on to reflect on his lengthy career that in recent times has caught the attention of those who passionately embrace sabermetrics. This is a term derived from the acronym SABR, which stands for the Society for American Baseball Research and was coined by Bill James, one of the pioneers of ...

“Do I care if Justin Upton gets his MVP right now? Hell, no,” Gibson said. “Do I care if Ian Kennedy gets his recognition? Hell, no. All I care is if we come out every day and go after our goal, which is a team thing. It’s really dangerous when you start to look for credit.”

The Pirates finished Saturday in fourth place, 14 1/2 games behind the Brewers, while the third-place Reds ended the day 13 1/2 games back. Still, 37,826 fans bought tickets, cheered when Andrew McCutchen scored the go-ahead run in the seventh inning and booed when they thought a runner was safe or a called strike three was a bit inside.

The Pirates are two sellouts away from matching PNC Park’s record of 19, which occurred in 2001, when the park opened. They’re now just 19,282 fans away from ...

In his worst outing of the season, and perhaps his worst as a Yankee, Burnett surrendered seven runs on a combination of five hits, three walks and two wild pitches as the Minnesota Twins pounded the Yankees, 9-4, at Target Field.

...That brought Girardi from the dugout, and when he took the ball, television cameras caught Burnett expressing anger — anger he later attributed to his being upset with a pitch call by an umpire and was not directing his anger at Girardi.

After being called up from Triple-A Toledo earlier in the day and returning from exile, Brandon Inge said he was going to make sure that the Tigers had more fun.

Inge and the Tigers had plenty of fun on Saturday, as they defeated the Indians, 10-1, and extended their lead in the American League Central to 3 1/2 games with help from Inge, who went 2-for-4 with a home run and two RBIs.
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Inge led off the second inning with a 380-foot blast to left field on the third pitch he saw, drawing an ...

Jose Altuve hit an inside-the-park drive for his first major league home run, a leadoff shot that sent the Houston Astros over the San Francisco Giants 7-5 Saturday night.

Altuve had three hits and fellow rookie J.D. Martinez homered, doubled and drove in four runs as the Astros matched a season high with their fourth straight win.
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Aubrey Huff homered and Cody Ross and Pablo Sandoval each drove in two runs for the Giants, who have lost three in a row and 16 of 22.

Saturday, August 20, 2011

Wow! I haven’t seen a Crane exposed like this…since “Take Off Your Clothes and Smile” was first scripted!

Mike Quade is not going to be the manager on the North Side next season, so why drag on the inevitable? Then there’s the 190-pound clown in the room that is team president Crane Kenney. To hear Ricketts talk about Kenney doing a “good job’’ running the business end of things for the organization was one of those throw-up-in-your-mouth moments. Kenney a liability, too

Unlike petitioning for Jason Heyward to play through injuries that obviously hurt him at the plate, Chipper made some comments about something he is qualified to make comments on. Chipper critiqued Heyward’s swing and spoke of ways he feels he can improve it at the plate.

As if Jews haven’t suffered enough, it turns out that Ralph Branca is a member of our tribe. The man who served up Bobby Thompson’s Shot Heard Round The World in 1951 recently learned that his mother was a closeted Jew. The full story, told in poignant detail in a recent New York Times article by Joshua Prager, suggests that Branca’s hidden religion may have had major ramifications for baseball.

Edward Norton is a fine actor who starred in such films as “Fight Club,” “Primal Fear” and “Rounders.” He is also a Columbia native and one of the most famous people to admit in public that he is still an Orioles fan.

Norton turned 42 today. What does he want for his birthday? For Cal Ripken to come save his Orioles.

“Thanks for all the nice messages. People have been asking what I want for my birthday. This:” Norton wrote on Twitter, linking to a site asking for ...

Even so, I find this widespread attempted canonization of Thome somewhat laughable, as if there’s no way he could ever have been involved with performance-enhancing drugs.

Maybe he used HGH. There was no testing. Or maybe, unlike dopey Manny Ramirez, he was just smart enough not to get caught. And maybe, because he was such a “nice guy,” some who cover baseball for a living are giving him a free pass.

Friday, August 19, 2011

“I have a contract and a commitment to the Dodgers,” Colletti said. “Until somebody tells me otherwise, that is where my focus is and where my efforts will be.”

Colletti, who has been the Dodgers GM since November 2005, signed a long-term contract extension in October 2009. The actual length of that extension has never been made public, and while Colletti does have an escape clause, it doesn’t kick in until after next season.

However, with the Dodgers presently in bankruptcy and a question of ...